Time Management Myths

I was comparing notes with my friend at work about so-called work-life balance. We're in similar situations - married, one child, both parents working.

Let me add also that one area that is always highlighted on my performance evaluations is time management, as in, I'm exceedingly good at it (or at least that's the perception my manager has).

So why is it that M and I are both perpetually feeling gassed? Well, I did a time inventory to see what my "time vampires" might be, and here's what it comes down to.

In my house, we get up around 6:30am (I get up at 5 on Tuesdays and Thursdays to go to the Y). By the time we get everyone showered and fed and dressed to go, we're out the door by 8. I drop my daughter off with her wonderful family daycare people and get to the office around 8:30 most days. I'm here until about 5. I pick up my daughter on the way home and if we don't have a quick shopping stop we're home by 5:30. My wife gets in around the same time.

Then we have dinner (I do 99.44% of the cooking in our household), usually around 6:30, and then after dinner until 7:30-8:00ish is family time.

After family time, the bedtime routine starts - story, bath, pj's, more stories, sleep. My wife cuddles our daughter to sleep at night, and if she's lucky, she's out by 9:30. I usually catch up on email or zone out with internet surfing in the interim, although I try to make more productive use of that time (like, reading the Kandinsky-Schoenberg correspondences for my thesis paper).

So, between 9:30 and betime, usually 11pm unless we're really lucky, my darling wife and I are doing domestica - dishes, laundry, lunches for the next day, giving the cat his pills, etc...

I'd manage my free time much better - if I actually had any.